Monday, September 21, 2015

The actor who single handed elevated "Jimmy Olsen" from cameo status to featured co-star in the Superman mythos, Jack Larson has died at the age of eighty seven.
Never has a performer so lightly and expertly escaped the bounds of typecasting as Jack Larson who effortlessly segued into writing producing and directing in the theater after his seven year stint as "Superman's Pal".
Larson piled up enough accomplishments in other areas of show biz that he was always able to bear the burden of "Olsenishness" very lightly, he didn't need to sell his autograph to survive he could play paterfamilias to the Superman fanbase sans worry or woe.
Along the way to "Grand old Man of DC Comics", Larson did something pretty amazing his goofy trouble-prone characterization of Jimmy Olsen was deemed so central to the TV show's popularity that he inspired a comic book "Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen" which had an impressive nineteen year run on the spinner racks.
And I swear, Jack Larson that out and proud playwright lived a good long life in part so he could remind people that scandal, a tangled personal life & mysterious death aside, George Reeves was still a very nice man and a princely castmate.
Or as he once told a rapt audience at the Brattle Theatre (on the occasion of Superman's 60th anniversary) "Jimmy Olsen has been good to me, so I am going to be good to Jimmy Olsen".

I've finally come to the conclusion that the elusive "Boston Accent" never sounds right in the movies not because the actors can't do it, but because we Bostonians don't get it right ourselves.
So once I concede that I can sit back and relax and enjoy "Black Mass" for the sheer vicious confirmation that Whitey Bulger (Johnny Depp)really was in the end a treacherous thug who never killed anyone who was in a position to give him a fair fight.
That and credulous former FBI Agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton) who is really the last of the Southie kids who believed all that shit about honor and tribal loyalty as his alleged key informant Whitey Bulger went on a city wide criminal rampage.
Yup the whole stupid story is there baldfaced for all to see, it might not play in Peoria but it resonates here by Ghod...right down to Depp's Bulger who struts around South Boston in a belted black leather jacket like he is Rotwang the Mad Scientist from "Metropolis".
And what da hell, "Black Mass" has brought Johnny Depp back from the dead, this is a fifty year old actor last seen playing "Tonto" the Lone Ranger's Faithful Indian Scout.
What he will do with his resurrection is an open question...likely something self destructive & inane like a remake of "The Wizard of Oz"....but if Depp wanted to stick with Bostonians he'd do worse than a big biopic of notorious 19th super criminal Adam Worth...